To expand on that, even long before 2010 it was really clear that Symbian as a technology could not compete with newer approaches like iOS and even Android and Nokia's own Meego/Maemo. Maybe Nokia could have changed that situation by actually improving Symbian dramatically, but they didn't. It's pretty much a turd of an operating system from the user's and technological point of view. (Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely accept the Joel Spolsky "Never do rewrites" school of thought, but it's no excuse to let your software stagnate.)
And in 2010, iOS and Android were growing much faster than Symbian and Blackberry, even if the latter had some growth - mostly due to price reductions, I suppose. I know that in 2010, I no longer considered Symbian a smartphone operating system. "Smartphone" is a relative term: the bar rises with time.
By the way: one thing that struck me as odd in the original Elop presentation was that he projected that a very large fraction (IIRC half or so) of the future handset sales would be feature phones and dumbphones that wouldn't even run Symbian...
You are right about Symbian losing, but it is definitely a smartphone in the true sense of the word.
From a user's perspective, the poor UX of the OS and apps is what dragged it down. From a technical perspective it had huge technical debt, which led to enormous development time and bugs.
And it is easy to show the fallacy of that. RIM/BlackBerry was winning too at the time.
The thing he missed is that the profits are a lagging indicator - they are the results of what you did in the past, not about the future. The companies in The Innovator's Dilemma had exactly the same profile - they had worked out how to be profitable and serve their customers well, right up to the point both fell off a cliff because what customers valued had changed.
It is. But if you keep reading and just look at his sales graphs (assuming they are not tampered with or biased in a way I can't detect) his overall point is very hard to argue with. By its own benchmarks and predictions, Elop's reign has been a massive disaster.
Personally I think that the crucial mistake was that they should have had Android devices ready to ship as Plan B and that Plan B should have been executed the minute Microsoft delayed or restricted them in getting to market decent Windows Phone devices. They were promised special access and privileges and then when it came to the crunch, were forced to ship devices with pathetic specs - WVGA screens, single core processors, no NFC, lots of other design compromises.
Now they are in the situation where MS has betrayed them multiple times, now treating HTC as a preferred partner right at the crucial time when Nokia's do or die last gasp effort with their Windows 8 phones are imminent. If there weren't insults enough already that should have been the last straw for them to start shipping Android devices. But whether because of his allegiances, general incompetence or otherwise, Elop has not executed this strategy, and he's absolutely culpable for that.
If you take a very naive view of what it means to be "winning", then sure. But I don't think such a view is ever warranted in business (heck, or even sports).
A team that is up by a few points heading into the final period, but has been thoroughly out-played and out-scored in the preceding period is not "winning" in the same way as a team that has been dominating for the entire game.
For a company (or team) to be truly "winning", they must be on a trajectory that will lead to long-term sustainability and growth. Nokia (their smartphone business, anyway) was on a downward trajectory, just like RIM (which, up until just a few years ago had a commanding lead over iOS and Android).
I could buy the idea that Nokia should have stuck with Meego, or even Maemo and pushed harder to make one of those platforms a commercial success. But the idea that Symbian was winning, under a non-naive definition of the term, is more or less a joke.
They were pushing the N97 back then. A lot of them. Unfortunately, it was the most overhyped "flagship" piece of crap they've ever produced. All those contract-bound customers who were sold an N97 between 2009 and 2011, betting on the "anti-iPhone", ran like hell as soon as their contracts expired.
